According to Woodward, the name Ragaan was 'a bastardisation' of Pagaan, the ancient capital of Burma.[2] Producer Alan Hardy said the fictitious setting for the military dictatorship was 'based on about 20 countries'.[4] 'It's an accurate representation of the lives of diplomats and how they have to deal with situations.'[5]

The serial was filmed partly in Fiji.[2]Suva was selected by producers as an ideal tropical shooting location for Port Victoria, the imaginary, run-down former British colonial capital of Ragaan.[5]

Embassy earned modest domestic viewing figures in Australia.[6] It has been criticised as an example of Orientalism, and more specifically as 'an exercise in stereotyping as a confirmation of an Anglo-Australian cultural hegemony in which non-Anglo nationalities are reduced to a homogeneous, imaginary "other"'.[7]

The star of the third series, New Zealand actress Catherine Wilkin, defended the program-makers' approach: 'Even though you obviously get the Western viewpoint of things in this mythical Muslim country, every effort is made to bring the other point of view across as well.'[8]

Although Embassy was not broadcast in Malaysia, its production was one of a series of events in the late 1980s and early 1990s, chiefly involving Australian concerns over human rights and the environment, that in June 1990 led to a temporary freezing of relations between Kuala Lumpur and Canberra.

The show caused a diplomatic row between the two Commonwealth allies due to an assumption in Kuala Lumpur that the show's setting was a thinly-disguised depiction of Malaysia, and that ABC Television, which produced the show, was, as a state broadcaster, government-controlled.[3][9] The Malaysian Prime Minister, Mahathir Mohamad, demanded that Embassy be taken off the air, complaining that it was an insult to his country and its official religion, Islam.[2] Malaysia also banned an issue of the Asian Wall Street Journal covering the controversy.[10]

The diplomatic downgrading damaged Australian investments and risked traditionally strong military ties with Malaysia.[12][13] The Australian Foreign Minister, Gareth Evans, expressed his government's regret for the offence Embassy had caused, but played down the spat as one of the 'bumps and grinds that occur in regional relations'.[10]

When Embassy was cancelled at the end of its third series, the ABC blamed declining ratings and denied its decision to end the controversial program had been influenced by outside pressures.[6] Nevertheless, suspicions were voiced by Australian media and academia that diplomatic tensions had been a contributing factor in the cancellation.[7]

1.
Drama
–
Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance. The term comes from a Greek word meaning action, which is derived from I do, the two masks associated with drama represent the traditional generic division between comedy and tragedy. They are symbols of the ancient Greek Muses, Thalia, Thalia was the Muse of comedy, while Melpomene was the Muse of tragedy. Considered as a genre of poetry in general, the mode has been contrasted with the epic. The use of drama in a narrow sense to designate a specific type of play dates from the modern era. Drama in this sense refers to a play that is neither a comedy nor a tragedy—for example and it is this narrower sense that the film and television industries, along with film studies, adopted to describe drama as a genre within their respective media. Radio drama has been used in both senses—originally transmitted in a performance, it has also been used to describe the more high-brow. The enactment of drama in theatre, performed by actors on a stage before an audience, presupposes collaborative modes of production, the structure of dramatic texts, unlike other forms of literature, is directly influenced by this collaborative production and collective reception. The early modern tragedy Hamlet by Shakespeare and the classical Athenian tragedy Oedipus Rex by Sophocles are among the masterpieces of the art of drama, a modern example is Long Days Journey into Night by Eugene O’Neill. Closet drama describes a form that is intended to be read, in improvisation, the drama does not pre-exist the moment of performance, performers devise a dramatic script spontaneously before an audience. Western drama originates in classical Greece, the theatrical culture of the city-state of Athens produced three genres of drama, tragedy, comedy, and the satyr play. Their origins remain obscure, though by the 5th century BCE they were institutionalised in competitions held as part of celebrating the god Dionysus. The competition for tragedies may have begun as early as 534 BCE, tragic dramatists were required to present a tetralogy of plays, which usually consisted of three tragedies and one satyr play. Comedy was officially recognized with a prize in the competition from 487 to 486 BCE, five comic dramatists competed at the City Dionysia, each offering a single comedy. Ancient Greek comedy is traditionally divided between old comedy, middle comedy and new comedy, following the expansion of the Roman Republic into several Greek territories between 270–240 BCE, Rome encountered Greek drama. While Greek drama continued to be performed throughout the Roman period, from the beginning of the empire, however, interest in full-length drama declined in favour of a broader variety of theatrical entertainments. The first important works of Roman literature were the tragedies and comedies that Livius Andronicus wrote from 240 BCE, five years later, Gnaeus Naevius also began to write drama. No plays from either writer have survived, by the beginning of the 2nd century BCE, drama was firmly established in Rome and a guild of writers had been formed

2.
Australia
–
Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and numerous smaller islands. It is the worlds sixth-largest country by total area, the neighbouring countries are Papua New Guinea, Indonesia and East Timor to the north, the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu to the north-east, and New Zealand to the south-east. Australias capital is Canberra, and its largest urban area is Sydney, for about 50,000 years before the first British settlement in the late 18th century, Australia was inhabited by indigenous Australians, who spoke languages classifiable into roughly 250 groups. The population grew steadily in subsequent decades, and by the 1850s most of the continent had been explored, on 1 January 1901, the six colonies federated, forming the Commonwealth of Australia. Australia has since maintained a liberal democratic political system that functions as a federal parliamentary constitutional monarchy comprising six states. The population of 24 million is highly urbanised and heavily concentrated on the eastern seaboard, Australia has the worlds 13th-largest economy and ninth-highest per capita income. With the second-highest human development index globally, the country highly in quality of life, health, education, economic freedom. The name Australia is derived from the Latin Terra Australis a name used for putative lands in the southern hemisphere since ancient times, the Dutch adjectival form Australische was used in a Dutch book in Batavia in 1638, to refer to the newly discovered lands to the south. On 12 December 1817, Macquarie recommended to the Colonial Office that it be formally adopted, in 1824, the Admiralty agreed that the continent should be known officially as Australia. The first official published use of the term Australia came with the 1830 publication of The Australia Directory and these first inhabitants may have been ancestors of modern Indigenous Australians. The Torres Strait Islanders, ethnically Melanesian, were originally horticulturists, the northern coasts and waters of Australia were visited sporadically by fishermen from Maritime Southeast Asia. The first recorded European sighting of the Australian mainland, and the first recorded European landfall on the Australian continent, are attributed to the Dutch. The first ship and crew to chart the Australian coast and meet with Aboriginal people was the Duyfken captained by Dutch navigator, Willem Janszoon. He sighted the coast of Cape York Peninsula in early 1606, the Dutch charted the whole of the western and northern coastlines and named the island continent New Holland during the 17th century, but made no attempt at settlement. William Dampier, an English explorer and privateer, landed on the north-west coast of New Holland in 1688, in 1770, James Cook sailed along and mapped the east coast, which he named New South Wales and claimed for Great Britain. The first settlement led to the foundation of Sydney, and the exploration, a British settlement was established in Van Diemens Land, now known as Tasmania, in 1803, and it became a separate colony in 1825. The United Kingdom formally claimed the part of Western Australia in 1828. Separate colonies were carved from parts of New South Wales, South Australia in 1836, Victoria in 1851, the Northern Territory was founded in 1911 when it was excised from South Australia

3.
Melbourne
–
Melbourne is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in Australia and Oceania. The name Melbourne refers to an urban agglomeration spanning 9,900 km2, the metropolis is located on the large natural bay of Port Phillip and expands into the hinterlands towards the Dandenong and Macedon mountain ranges, Mornington Peninsula and Yarra Valley. It has a population of 4,641,636 as of 2016, and its inhabitants are called Melburnians. Founded by free settlers from the British Crown colony of Van Diemens Land on 30 August 1835, in what was then the colony of New South Wales, it was incorporated as a Crown settlement in 1837. It was named Melbourne by the Governor of New South Wales, Sir Richard Bourke, in honour of the British Prime Minister of the day, William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne. It was officially declared a city by Queen Victoria, to whom Lord Melbourne was close, in 1847, during the Victorian gold rush of the 1850s, it was transformed into one of the worlds largest and wealthiest cities. After the federation of Australia in 1901, it served as the interim seat of government until 1927. It is a financial centre in the Asia-Pacific region. It is recognised as a UNESCO City of Literature and a centre for street art, music. It was the host city of the 1956 Summer Olympics and the 2006 Commonwealth Games, the main passenger airport serving the metropolis and the state is Melbourne Airport, the second busiest in Australia. The Port of Melbourne is Australias busiest seaport for containerised and general cargo, Melbourne has an extensive transport network. The main metropolitan train terminus is Flinders Street Station, and the regional train. Melbourne is also home to Australias most extensive network and has the worlds largest urban tram network. Before the arrival of settlers, humans had occupied the area for an estimated 31,000 to 40,000 years. At the time of European settlement, it was inhabited by under 2000 hunter-gatherers from three indigenous tribes, the Wurundjeri, Boonwurrung and Wathaurong. The area was an important meeting place for the clans of the Kulin nation alliance and it would be 30 years before another settlement was attempted. Batman selected a site on the bank of the Yarra River. Batman then returned to Launceston in Tasmania, in early August 1835 a different group of settlers, including John Pascoe Fawkner, left Launceston on the ship Enterprize

4.
Rippon Lea Estate
–
Rippon Lea Estate is a historic property located in Elsternwick, Victoria, Australia. It is under the care of the National Trust of Australia and it was built in 1868 for Sir Frederick Sargood, a wealthy Melbourne businessman, politician and philanthropist. Frederick and his wife Marion purchased Crown Allotment 253 and either all, or part of Crown Allotment 260 in the Parish of Prahran, located about 8 kilometres from the Melbourne central business district, he contracted a two-storey,15 room house be built. An extensive pleasure garden was laid out around the house, together with glasshouses, vegetable gardens, the gardens were designed to be self-sufficient as regards water, and the large man-made lake on the property was designed to store stormwater run-off from the surrounding area. The greatest structural changes occurred in 1897 when the house was extended to the north, the style of the house has been described as polychromatic romanesque and the architect, Joseph Reed, was said to have been inspired by the architecture of the Lombardy region of northern Italy. On Fredericks death in 1903, the property was sold to a consortium of real estate developers who had plans to demolish the house and subdivide the land. Elsternwick at this time was a new suburb on the outskirts of Melbourne,35 years earlier when the Sargoods bought the land, the house was empty for six years, while the developers sold off various parcels of land, particularly the orchards and paddocks. However, before the final carve-up of the estate could be undertaken, the leader of the consortium, Sir Thomas Bent, died and it was bought by Ben and Agnes Nathan, who owned the Maples chain of furniture stores in Melbourne. The Nathans lived there until Bens death in 1935, the property then passed to their eldest daughter, Louisa, along with a legacy of £1 million. Louisa was a figure in the Melbourne social set in the 1930s. She undertook extensive remodelling and renovation of the house to allow her to entertain on a lavish scale, the interior of the house was redecorated in a restrained classical 1930s style, drawing heavily on Hollywood film style of the 1930s and Syrie Maughams all white room as influences. The ornate iron-framed ballroom built by Frederick Sargood was demolished to make way for a lavish Hollywood style swimming pool, another section of the property was compulsorily acquired by the state government a few years later and Mrs Jones fought a long-running legal action against it. She eventually settled with the government, agreeing that, on her death the house, of particular note in the grounds are the lake, the spectacular iron-framed fernery, the swimming pool and associated ballroom and the stable complex. The rooms of the basement kitchen complex are also of special interest, having built in the 1880s. Today they are a rare surviving Australian example of a 19th-century kitchen suite, comprising kitchen, scullery, pantries, cool rooms, servants hall and wine cellar

5.
Victoria (Australia)
–
Victoria is a state in southeast Australia. Victoria is Australias most densely populated state and its second-most populous state overall, most of its population is concentrated in the area surrounding Port Phillip Bay, which includes the metropolitan area of its state capital and largest city, Melbourne, Australias second-largest city. Prior to British European settlement, the area now constituting Victoria was inhabited by a number of Aboriginal peoples. With Great Britain having claimed the entire Australian continent east of the 135th meridian east in 1788, Victoria was included in the wider colony of New South Wales. The first settlement in the area occurred in 1803 at Sullivan Bay, and much of what is now Victoria was included in the Port Phillip District in 1836, Victoria was officially created as a separate colony in 1851, and achieved self-government in 1855. Politically, Victoria has 37 seats in the Australian House of Representatives and 12 seats in the Australian Senate, at state level, the Parliament of Victoria consists of the Legislative Assembly and the Legislative Council. Victoria is currently governed by the Labor Party, with Daniel Andrews the current Premier, the personal representative of the Queen of Australia in the state is the Governor of Victoria, currently Linda Dessau. Local government is concentrated in 79 municipal districts, including 33 cities, although a number of unincorporated areas still exist, Victorias total gross state product is ranked second in Australia, although Victoria is ranked fourth in terms of GSP per capita because of its limited mining activity. Culturally, Melbourne is home to a number of museums, art galleries and theatres and is described as the sporting capital of Australia. The Melbourne Cricket Ground is the largest stadium in Australia, and the host of the 1956 Summer Olympics, Victoria has eight public universities, with the oldest, the University of Melbourne, having been founded in 1853. Victoria, like Queensland, was named after Queen Victoria, who had been on the British throne for 14 years when the colony was established in 1851. The first British settlement in the later known as Victoria was established in October 1803 under Lieutenant-Governor David Collins at Sullivan Bay on Port Phillip. In the year 1826 Colonel Stewart, Captain S. Wright, fly and the brigs Dragon and Amity, took a number of convicts and a small force composed of detachments of the 3rd and 93rd regiments. Victorias next settlement was at Portland, on the south west coast of what is now Victoria, edward Henty settled Portland Bay in 1834. Melbourne was founded in 1835 by John Batman, who set up a base in Indented Head, from settlement the region around Melbourne was known as the Port Phillip District, a separately administered part of New South Wales. Shortly after the now known as Geelong was surveyed by Assistant Surveyor W. H. Smythe. And in 1838 Geelong was officially declared a town, despite earlier white settlements dating back to 1826, days later, still in 1851 gold was discovered near Ballarat, and subsequently at Bendigo. Later discoveries occurred at sites across Victoria

6.
Suva
–
Suva is the capital and second largest municipality and largest municipality with city status in Fiji. It is located on the southeast coast of the island of Viti Levu, in the Rewa Province, Suva is Fijis political and administrative capital. It is the largest and most cosmopolitan city in the southern Pacific Ocean and has become an important regional centre, students from the Pacific region and a growing expatriate community make up a significant portion of the citys population. According to the Authority of Local Government Act, Suva is governed, in 1877, it was decided to make Suva the capital of Fiji, as the geography of former main European settlement at Levuka on the island of Ovalau, Lomaiviti province proved too restrictive. The administration of the colony was moved from Levuka to Suva in 1882, at the 2007 census, the city of Suva had a population of 85,691. Including independent suburbs, the population of the Greater Suva urban area was 172,399 at the 2007 census. Suva, along with the towns of Lami, Nasinu. This urban complex is also as the Suva–Nausori corridor. The original intention was to develop a cotton farming industry, but the land, the transfer was made official in 1882. Colonel F. E. Pratt of the Royal Engineers was appointed Surveyor-General in 1875 and designed the new capital, assisted by W. Stephens, following the promulgation of the Municipal Constitution Ordinance of 1909, Suva acquired municipal status in 1910. The town initially comprised one square mile, these boundaries remained intact until 1952 when the Muanikau and Samabula wards were annexed, in October that year, Suva was proclaimed a city – Fijis first. Tamavua was subsequently annexed, the most recent extension of the city boundaries has been to incorporate the Cunningham area to the north of the city. Urban sprawl has resulted in a number of suburbs that remain outside of the city limits, together with the city itself, the city hosted the 2003 South Pacific Games, being the third time in the events 40-year history that they had been held in Suva. Suva is the capital of Fiji and is a city built on a peninsula reaching out into the sea. It has a mix of buildings and traditional colonial architecture. The city is perched on a peninsula between Laucala Bay and Suva Harbour in the southeast corner of Viti Levu. The mountains north and west catch the southeast trade winds, producing moist conditions year round, Suva is the commercial and political centre of Fiji, though not necessarily the cultural centre, and the largest urban area in the South Pacific outside of Australia and New Zealand. It is Fijis main port city, although Suva is on a peninsula, and almost surrounded by sea, the nearest beach is 40 kilometres away at Pacific Harbour and the nearby coast is lined by mangroves

7.
Fiji
–
Fiji, officially the Republic of Fiji, is an island country in Melanesia in the South Pacific Ocean about 1,100 nautical miles northeast of New Zealands North Island. Fiji is an archipelago of more than 330 islands, of which 110 are permanently inhabited, the two major islands, Viti Levu and Vanua Levu, account for 87% of the population of almost 860,000. The capital, Suva on Viti Levu, serves as Fijis principal cruise port, about three-quarters of Fijians live on Viti Levus coasts, either in Suva or in smaller urban centres like Nadi or Lautoka. Viti Levus interior is sparsely inhabited due to its terrain, Fiji has one of the most developed economies in the Pacific due to an abundance of forest, mineral, and fish resources. Today, the sources of foreign exchange are its tourist industry. The countrys currency is the Fijian dollar, Fijis local government, in the form of city and town councils, is supervised by the Ministry of Local Government and Urban Development. The majority of Fijis islands were formed through volcanic activity starting around 150 million years ago, today, some geothermal activity still occurs on the islands of Vanua Levu and Taveuni. Fiji has been inhabited since the second millennium BC, and was settled first by Austronesians and later by Melanesians, Europeans visited Fiji from the 17th century, and, after a brief period as an independent kingdom, the British established the Colony of Fiji in 1874. Fiji was a Crown colony until 1970, when it gained independence as a Commonwealth realm, a republic was declared in 1987, following a series of coups détat. In a coup in 2006, Commodore Frank Bainimarama seized power, later in 2009, Iloilo was replaced as President by Ratu Epeli Nailatikau. After years of delays, an election was held on 17 September 2014. Bainimaramas FijiFirst party won with 59. 2% of the vote, Fijis main island is known as Viti Levu and it is from this that the name Fiji is derived, though the common English pronunciation is based on that of their island neighbours in Tonga. Its emergence can be described as follows, Fijians first impressed themselves on European consciousness through the writings of the members of the expeditions of Cook who met them in Tonga. They were described as warriors and ferocious cannibals, builders of the finest vessels in the Pacific. They inspired awe amongst the Tongans, and all their Manufactures, especially bark cloth and clubs, were highly valued and much in demand. They called their home Viti, but the Tongans called it Fisi, and it was by this foreign pronunciation, Fiji, first promulgated by Captain James Cook, that these islands are now known. Feejee, the Anglicised spelling of the Tongan pronunciation, was used in accounts and other writings until the late 19th century, by missionaries and other travellers visiting Fiji. Pottery art from Fijian towns shows that Fiji was settled before or around 3500 to 1000 BC, the first settlements in Fiji were started by voyaging traders and settlers from the west about 5000 years ago

8.
Australian Broadcasting Corporation
–
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation is Australias national public broadcaster, owned and funded by the government. The ABC plays a role in the history of broadcasting in Australia. With a total budget of A$1. Founded in 1929 as the Australian Broadcasting Company, it was made a state-owned corporation on 1 July 1932 as the Australian Broadcasting Commission. The Australian Broadcasting Corporation Act 1983 changed the name of the organisation to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, although funded and owned by the government, the ABC remains editorially independent as ensured through the Australian Broadcasting Corporation Act 1983. The ABC is sometimes referred to as Aunty, originally in imitation of the British Broadcasting Corporations nickname. The first public station in Australia opened in Sydney on 23 November 1923 under the call sign 2SB with other stations in Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide, Perth. It also nationalised the Australian Broadcasting Company which had created by entertainment interests to supply programs to various radio stations. Over the next four years the stations were reformed into a broadcasting organisation through regular program relays. The Australian broadcast radio spectrum was constituted of the ABC and the commercial sector, in 1942 The Australian Broadcasting Act was passed, giving the ABC the power to decide when, and in what circumstances, political speeches should be broadcast. Directions from the Minister about whether or not to broadcast any matter now had to be made in writing and it was used only once, in 1963. In the same year, Kindergarten of the Air began on ABC Radio in Perth, cater argues that reform was urgently needed in 1945, By the end of World War II, the ABC was a decadent, hollow institution. Its authority had been compromised by a poorly drafted charter and further undermined by timid management, poor governance, in April 1945, Boyer refused to accept the post of chairman until Prime Minister Curtin issued a mandate of independence which Boyer drafted itself. The ABC commenced television broadcasting in 1956, and followed the earlier practice of naming the station after the first letter of the base state. ABN-2 Sydney was inaugurated by Prime Minister Robert Menzies on 5 November 1956, with the first broadcast presented by Michael Charlton, aBV-2 followed two weeks later, on 18 November 1956. Stations in other cities followed, ABQ-2, ABS-2, ABW-2. ABC-3 Canberra opened in 1961, and ABD-6 started broadcasting in 1971, although radio programs could be distributed nationally by landline, television relay facilities were not in place until the early 1960s. This meant that news bulletins had to be sent to each city by teleprinter, to be prepared and presented separately in each city, with filmed materials copied manually

9.
Diplomatic mission
–
In practice, a diplomatic mission usually denotes the resident mission, namely the office of a countrys diplomatic representatives in the capital city of another country. As well as being a mission to the country in which it is situated. There are thus resident and non-resident embassies, a permanent diplomatic mission is typically known as an Embassy, and the head of the mission is known as an Ambassador, or High Commissioner. Therefore, the Embassy operates in the Chancery, European Union missions abroad are known as EU delegations. Some countries have more particular naming for their missions and staff, under the rule of Muammar Gaddafi, Libyas missions used the name peoples bureau and the head of the mission was a secretary. Missions between Commonwealth countries are known as commissions and their heads are High Commissioners. This is because Ambassadors are exchanged between foreign countries, but since the beginning of the Commonwealth, member countries have maintained that they are not foreign to one another. An ambassador represents one head of state to another and a letters of credence are addressed by one head of state to another. Until India became a republic on 26 January 1950, all members of the Commonwealth had the head of state. In the past a diplomatic mission headed by an official was known as a legation. Since the ranks of envoy and minister resident are effectively obsolete, a consulate is similar to, but not the same as a diplomatic office, but with focus on dealing with individual persons and businesses, as defined by the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations. A consulate or consulate general is generally a representative of the embassy in locales outside of the capital city. For instance, the United Kingdom has its Embassy of the United Kingdom in Washington, D. C. but also maintains seven consulates-general, the person in charge of a consulate or consulate-general is known as a consul or consul-general, respectively. Similar services may also be provided at the embassy in what is called a consular section. In cases of dispute, it is common for a country to recall its head of mission as a sign of its displeasure, a chargé daffaires ad interim also heads the mission during the interim between the end of one chief of missions term and the beginning of another. Contrary to popular belief, most diplomatic missions do not enjoy full extraterritorial status, rather, the premises of diplomatic missions usually remain under the jurisdiction of the host state while being afforded special privileges by the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations. Diplomats themselves still retain full diplomatic immunity, and the host country may not enter the premises of the mission without permission of the represented country, international rules designate an attack on an embassy as an attack on the country it represents. The term extraterritoriality is often applied to missions, but normally only in this broader sense

10.
Fictional country
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A fictional country is a country that is made up for fictional stories, and does not exist in real life, or one that people believe in without proof. Sailors have always mistaken low clouds for land masses, and in later times this was given the name Dutch capes, other fictional lands appear most commonly as settings or subjects of myth, literature, movies, or video games. Also, the ISO3166 country code ZZ is reserved as a country code. Fictional countries appear commonly in stories of science fiction. Such countries supposedly form part of the normal Earth landscape although not located in a normal atlas, later similar tales often took place on fictional planets. Jonathan Swifts protagonist, Lemuel Gulliver, visited various strange places, edgar Rice Burroughs placed adventures of Tarzan in areas in Africa that, at the time, remained mostly unknown to the West and to the East. Isolated islands with strange creatures and/or customs enjoyed great popularity in these authors times, by the 19th century, when Western explorers had surveyed most of the Earths surface, this option was lost to Western culture. Thereafter fictional utopian and dystopian societies tended to spring up on other planets or in space, Fictional countries can also be used in stories set in a distant future, with other political borders than today. Superhero and secret agent comics and some also use fictional countries on Earth as backdrops. Most of these countries exist only for a story, a TV-series episode or an issue of a comic book. There are notable exceptions, such as Qumar and Equatorial Kundu in The West Wing, Marvel Comics Latveria and DC Comics Qurac, Fictional countries often deliberately resemble or even represent some real-world country or present a utopia or dystopia for commentary. Variants of the name sometimes make it clear what country they really have in mind. Fictional countries have created for polling purposes. When polled in April 2004, 8% of British people believed that the country of Luvania would soon join the European Union. In the 1989 General Social Survey, U. S. respondents were asked to rate the social status of people of Wisian background, once you let the Wisians in, the neighborhood goes to pot, quipped Time Magazine. Countries from stories, myths, legends, that some believe to exist, ISBN 978-0684849584 Media related to Fictional countries at Wikimedia Commons

11.
Southeast Asia
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Southeast Asia or Southeastern Asia is a subregion of Asia, consisting of the countries that are geographically south of China, east of India, west of New Guinea and north of Australia. The region lies near the intersection of geological plates, with seismic and volcanic activity. Southeast Asia consists of two regions, Mainland Southeast Asia, also known historically as Indochina, comprising Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, Myanmar. Maritime Southeast Asia, comprising Indonesia, East Malaysia, Singapore, Philippines, East Timor, Brunei, Cocos Islands, definitions of Southeast Asia vary, but most definitions include the area represented by the countries listed below. All of the states are members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, the area, together with part of South Asia, was widely known as the East Indies or simply the Indies until the 20th century. Sovereignty issues exist over some territories in the South China Sea, Papua New Guinea has stated that it might join ASEAN, and is currently an observer. Southeast Asia is geographically divided into two subregions, namely Mainland Southeast Asia and Maritime Southeast Asia, Mainland Southeast Asia includes, Maritime Southeast Asia includes, The Andaman and Nicobar Islands of India are geographically considered part of Southeast Asia. Eastern Bangladesh and the Seven Sister States of India are culturally part of Southeast Asia, the eastern half of Indonesia and East Timor are considered to be biogeographically part of Oceania. Homo sapiens reached the region by around 45,000 years ago, homo floresiensis also lived in the area up until 12,000 years ago, when they became extinct. Austronesian people, who form the majority of the population in Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei, East Timor. Solheim and others have shown evidence for a Nusantao maritime trading network ranging from Vietnam to the rest of the archipelago as early as 5000 BC to 1 AD. The peoples of Southeast Asia, especially those of Austronesian descent, have been seafarers for thousands of years and their vessels, such as the vinta, were ocean-worthy. Magellans voyage records how much more manoeuvrable their vessels were, as compared to the European ships, Passage through the Indian Ocean aided the colonisation of Madagascar by the Austronesian people, as well as commerce between West Asia and Southeast Asia. Gold from Sumatra is thought to have reached as far west as Rome and this was later replaced by Hinduism. Theravada Buddhism soon followed in 525, in the 15th century, Islamic influences began to enter. This forced the last Hindu court in Indonesia to retreat to Bali, in Mainland Southeast Asia, Burma, Cambodia and Thailand retained the Theravada form of Buddhism, brought to them from Sri Lanka. This type of Buddhism was fused with the Hindu-influenced Khmer culture, very little is known about Southeast Asian religious beliefs and practices before the advent of Indian merchants and religious influences from the 2nd century BCE onwards. Prior to the 13th century CE, Hinduism and Buddhism were the religions in Southeast Asia

12.
Malay Peninsula
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The Malay Peninsula is a peninsula in Southeast Asia. The land mass runs approximately north-south and, at its terminus, is the southernmost point of the Asian mainland, the area contains the southernmost tip of Myanmar, Peninsular Malaysia, and Southern Thailand. The Titiwangsa Mountains are part of the Tenasserim Hills system, and they form the southernmost section of the central cordillera which runs from Tibet through the Kra Isthmus into the Malay Peninsula. The Strait of Malacca separates the Malay Peninsula from the Indonesian island of Sumatra while the south coast is separated from the island of Singapore by the Straits of Johor, the Malay term Tanah Melayu is derived from the word Tanah and Melayu, thus it means the Malay land. The term can be found in various pre-modern Malay texts, of which the oldest dating back to the early 17th century and it is frequently mentioned in the Hikayat Hang Tuah, a well known classical work that began as oral tales associated with the legendary heroes of Malacca Sultanate. Tanah Melayu in the text is consistently employed to refer to the area under Melakan dominance, prior to the foundation of Melaka, reference to Malay peninsula was made in different terms from various foreign sources. According to several Indian scholars, the word Malayadvipa, mentioned in the ancient Indian text, Vayu Purana, may possibly refer to the Malay peninsula. Another Indian source, an inscription on the wall of the Brihadeeswarar Temple, recorded the word Malaiur. The Greek source, Geographia, written by Ptolemy, labelled a geographical part of Golden Chersonese as Maleu-kolon, a term thought to derive from Sanskrit malayakolam or malaikurram. During the same era, Marco Polo made a reference to Malauir in his travelogue, as a kingdom located in the Malay peninsula, possibly similar to the one mentioned in Yuan chronicle

13.
Thailand
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Thailand, officially the Kingdom of Thailand, formerly known as Siam, is a country at the centre of the Indochinese peninsula in Southeast Asia. With a total area of approximately 513,000 km2, Thailand is the worlds 51st-largest country and it is the 20th-most-populous country in the world, with around 66 million people. The capital and largest city is Bangkok, Thailand is a constitutional monarchy and has switched between parliamentary democracy and military junta for decades, the latest coup being in May 2014 by the National Council for Peace and Order. Its capital and most populous city is Bangkok and its maritime boundaries include Vietnam in the Gulf of Thailand to the southeast, and Indonesia and India on the Andaman Sea to the southwest. The Thai economy is the worlds 20th largest by GDP at PPP and it became a newly industrialised country and a major exporter in the 1990s. Manufacturing, agriculture, and tourism are leading sectors of the economy and it is considered a middle power in the region and around the world. The country has always been called Mueang Thai by its citizens, by outsiders prior to 1949, it was usually known by the exonym Siam. The word Siam has been identified with the Sanskrit Śyāma, the names Shan and A-hom seem to be variants of the same word. The word Śyâma is possibly not its origin, but a learned, another theory is the name derives from Chinese, Ayutthaya emerged as a dominant centre in the late fourteenth century. The Chinese called this region Xian, which the Portuguese converted into Siam, the signature of King Mongkut reads SPPM Mongkut King of the Siamese, giving the name Siam official status until 24 June 1939 when it was changed to Thailand. Thailand was renamed Siam from 1945 to 11 May 1949, after which it reverted to Thailand. According to George Cœdès, the word Thai means free man in the Thai language, ratcha Anachak Thai means kingdom of Thailand or kingdom of Thai. Etymologically, its components are, ratcha, -ana- -chak, the Thai National Anthem, written by Luang Saranupraphan during the extremely patriotic 1930s, refers to the Thai nation as, prathet Thai. The first line of the anthem is, prathet thai ruam lueat nuea chat chuea thai, Thailand is the unity of Thai flesh. There is evidence of habitation in Thailand that has been dated at 40,000 years before the present. Similar to other regions in Southeast Asia, Thailand was heavily influenced by the culture and religions of India, Thailand in its earliest days was under the rule of the Khmer Empire, which had strong Hindu roots, and the influence among Thais remains even today. Voretzsch believes that Buddhism must have been flowing into Siam from India in the time of the Indian Emperor Ashoka of the Maurya Empire, later Thailand was influenced by the south Indian Pallava dynasty and north Indian Gupta Empire. The Menam Basin was originally populated by the Mons, and the location of Dvaravati in the 7th century, the History of the Yuan mentions an embassy from the kingdom of Sukhothai in 1282

14.
Malaysia
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Malaysia is a federal constitutional monarchy located in Southeast Asia. Peninsular Malaysia shares a land and maritime border with Thailand and maritime borders with Singapore, Vietnam, East Malaysia shares land and maritime borders with Brunei and Indonesia and a maritime border with the Philippines and Vietnam. The capital city is Kuala Lumpur, while Putrajaya is the seat of the federal government, with a population of over 30 million, Malaysia is the 44th most populous country. The southernmost point of continental Eurasia, Tanjung Piai, is in Malaysia, located in the tropics, Malaysia is one of 17 megadiverse countries on earth, with large numbers of endemic species. Malaysia has its origins in the Malay kingdoms present in the area which, from the 18th century, the first British territories were known as the Straits Settlements, whose establishment was followed by the Malay kingdoms becoming British protectorates. The territories on Peninsular Malaysia were first unified as the Malayan Union in 1946, Malaya was restructured as the Federation of Malaya in 1948, and achieved independence on 31 August 1957. Malaya united with North Borneo, Sarawak, and Singapore on 16 September 1963 to become Malaysia, less than two years later in 1965, Singapore was expelled from the federation. The country is multi-ethnic and multi-cultural, which plays a role in politics. About half the population is ethnically Malay, with minorities of Malaysian Chinese, Malaysian Indians. The constitution declares Islam the state religion while allowing freedom of religion for non-Muslims, the government system is closely modelled on the Westminster parliamentary system and the legal system is based on common law. The head of state is the king, known as the Yang di-Pertuan Agong and he is an elected monarch chosen from the hereditary rulers of the nine Malay states every five years. The head of government is the prime minister, since its independence, Malaysia has had one of the best economic records in Asia, with its GDP growing at an average of 6. 5% per annum for almost 50 years. The economy has traditionally been fuelled by its resources, but is expanding in the sectors of science, tourism, commerce. Today, Malaysia has a newly industrialised market economy, ranked third largest in Southeast Asia, the name Malaysia is a combination of the word Malay and the Latin-Greek suffix -sia/-σία. The word melayu in Malay may derive from the Tamil words malai and ur meaning mountain and city, land, malayadvipa was the word used by ancient Indian traders when referring to the Malay Peninsula. Whether or not it originated from these roots, the word melayu or mlayu may have used in early Malay/Javanese to mean to steadily accelerate or run. This term was applied to describe the current of the river Melayu in Sumatra. The name was adopted by the Melayu Kingdom that existed in the seventh century on Sumatra

15.
Prisoner (TV series)
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Prisoner was an Australian soap opera set in the Wentworth Detention Centre, a fictional womens prison. In the United States and United Kingdom it was known as Prisoner, Cell Block H, with the same title, the series, produced by the Reg Grundy Organisation, aired on Network Ten for 692 episodes between 27 February 1979 and 11 December 1986. Originally, it was planned as a 16-part series, the show was inspired by the British television drama Within These Walls, which was moderately successful in Australia. The Prisoner producers approached Googie Withers of Within These Walls to play the prison governor, due to an injunction requested by UK-based ATV, which considered the title too similar to their The Prisoner, overseas broadcasters had to change the series name. In March 2012 it was announced that Prisoner would be reimagined on Foxtel in a new version, Prisoner was created by Reg Watson, who had produced the British soap opera Crossroads from 1964 to 1973 and would create Australian soaps The Young Doctors, Sons and Daughters and Neighbours. Initially conceived as a 16-episode series, the title of the pilot episode was Women Behind Bars. Its storylines focused on the lives of the prisoners and, to a lesser extent, when the initial episodes met an enthusiastic reception, it was felt that Prisoner could be developed into an ongoing soap opera. The early storylines were developed and expanded, with assistance from the Corrective Services Department, the shows themes, often radical, included feminism, homosexuality and social reform. Prisoner began in early 1979 with the slogan, If you think prison is hell for a man. The series examined how women dealt with incarceration and separation from their families, within the prison, major themes were interpersonal relationships, power struggles, friendships and rivalries. The prisoners became a family, with Bea Smith and Jeanette Brookes central mother figures. Several lesbian characters, including prisoners Franky Doyle and Judy Bryant and officer Joan Ferguson, typical of long-running TV dramas, consistency and characterization were problematic for the series. Initially there was a prison next door to Wentworth. Barnhurst was originally a prison, soon becoming a womens facility. Although Blackmoor Prison was initially described as a new, state-of-the-art maximum-security prison. Wentworth was variously described as new or built during World War II. Dr. Greg Miller stated in one that he had his own private practice. Background officer Joan Barfield was often called Connie in early episodes, viewers introduction to the Detention Centre featured the arrival of two new prisoners, Karen Travers and Lynn Warner

16.
Iran hostage crisis
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The Iran hostage crisis was a diplomatic standoff between Iran and the United States. S. It stands as the longest hostage crisis in recorded history, the crisis was described by the Western media as an entanglement of vengeance and mutual incomprehension. President Jimmy Carter called the victims of terrorism and anarchy and said. After his overthrow in 1979, the Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi was purportedly admitted to the United States for cancer treatment, Iran demanded that he be returned to stand trial for crimes he was accused of committing during his reign. Specifically, Pahlavi was accused of committing crimes against Iranian citizens with the help of his secret police, Iranians saw the decision to grant him asylum as American complicity in those atrocities. The Americans saw the hostage-taking as a violation of the principles of international law. The crisis reached a climax after diplomatic negotiations failed to win release for the hostages, six American diplomats who had evaded capture were eventually rescued by a Canadian effort on January 27,1980. Shah Pahlavi left the United States in December 1979 and was granted asylum in Egypt. In September 1980, the Iraqi military invaded Iran, beginning the Iran–Iraq War and these events led the Iranian government to enter negotiations with the U. S. with Algeria acting as a mediator. The hostages were released into United States custody the day after the signing of the Algiers Accords, just minutes after the new American president. The crisis is considered an episode in the history of Iran–United States relations. Political analysts cite it as a factor in the downfall of Jimmy Carter’s presidency. In Iran, the crisis strengthened the prestige of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the crisis also led to the United States’ economic sanctions against Iran, further weakening ties between the two countries. In February 1979, less than a year before the crisis, for several decades before that, the United States had allied with and supported the Shah. During World War II, Allied powers Britain and the Soviet Union occupied Iran to force the abdication of first Pahlavi monarch Reza Shah Pahlavi, in favor of his eldest son, Crown Prince Mohammad. Because of its importance in the Allied victory, Iran was subsequently called The Bridge of Victory by Winston Churchill, by the 1950s, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi was engaged in a power struggle with Iran’s prime minister, Mohammad Mosaddegh, an immediate descendant of the preceding Qajar dynasty. Mosaddegh led a strike on behalf of impoverished Iranians, demanding a share of the nation’s petroleum revenue from Britain’s Anglo-Iranian Oil Company. However, he overstepped in trying to get $50 million in damages, in 1953, the British and American spy agencies helped Iranian royalists depose Mosaddegh in a military coup détat codenamed Operation Ajax, allowing the Shah to extend his power

17.
Minister for Foreign Affairs (Australia)
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The Australian Minister for Foreign Affairs is the Hon. Julie Bishop MP, since 18 September 2013. The Minister for International Development and the Pacific is Senator the Hon. Concetta Fierravanti-Wells, in the Government of Australia, the minister is responsible for overseeing the international diplomacy section of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. In common with international practice, the office is informally referred to as Foreign Minister. In recent times, the minister also undertakes numerous international trips to meet with foreign representatives, the portfolio has existed continuously since 1901, except for the period 14 November 1916 to 21 December 1921. Prior to 6 November 1970, the office was known as the Minister for External Affairs, between 24 July 1987 and 24 March 1993 it was known as the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade. Starting with the Keating Government, the Trade portfolio has been administered separately by the Minister for Trade. The following individuals have been appointed as Minister for Foreign Affairs,2 Barton was knighted in 1902, while serving as Minister. AusAID was abolished by the prime minister, Tony Abbott, in September 2013

18.
Gareth Evans (politician)
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Gareth John Evans AC, QC, is an Australian international policymaker and former politician. After leaving politics, he was President and Chief Executive Officer of the Brussels-based International Crisis Group from 2000 to 2009, on returning to Australia he was appointed in 2009 honorary professorial fellow at the University of Melbourne. Since 2010, Evans has been the Chancellor of the Australian National University and he was appointed an Honorary Professorial Fellow at the ANU in 2012. He currently is a member of the Board of Sponsors for the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Evans was born in Melbourne, Victoria. His father was a driver, and his mother, who had been a wartime Woolworths store manager. In 2004, he was elected an Honorary Fellow of Magdalen College, from 1976 to his entry into the Parliament he practised full-time as a barrister, specialising in industrial law, and appellate argument, and became a Queens Counsel in 1983. Evans was active in civil liberties issues from his student days on, campaigning on issues such as censorship, capital punishment and he was a long-serving vice-president of the Victorian Council for Civil Liberties, and an active executive member of the Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service. He was an unsuccessful Labor candidate for the Senate in 1975, after the October 1980 election he was elected to the Opposition front bench in 1980, becoming Shadow Attorney-General. As Attorney-General, Evans undertook a large agenda for law reform on a range of issues and he immediately ran into controversy, arranging for the Royal Australian Air Force to take surveillance photos of the Franklin Dam project in Tasmania. The Hawke government was pledged to stop the project, over the objections of the Tasmanian Liberal government and this incident also led to Evans coining the expression streakers defence, which has entered the Australian vocabulary. In a demotion following this record, Hawke moved him to the less sensitive portfolio of Resources. In the two major industry portfolios he held over the five years, Evans was generally perceived as playing himself back into the government mainstream. Evans was appointed Foreign Minister in September 1988, after his predecessor Bill Hayden retired to become Governor-General and he held the position for seven years and six months, the longest-serving Labor minister in that portfolio. He became a well-known Foreign Minister and highly regarded internationally, Evans famously became the first person to drop the f-bomb in the Australian Parliament, interjecting for fucks sake during a speech by Senator Robert Hill. Despite his reputation as a negotiator he was reputed to be in possession of a short-temper with a particular intolerance for elected representatives of the Australian Greens. Evans ran into significant controversy on two issues, relations with Indonesia over East Timor and French Nuclear Tests in the Pacific. In 1993, as a member of the Keating government, Senator Evans became Leader of the Government in the Senate, replacing the retiring John Button, whose Deputy he had been since 1987. In this position he led the governments legislative agenda in the upper house, where the government did not have a majority

19.
Myanmar
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Myanmar, officially the Republic of the Union of Myanmar and also known as Burma, is a sovereign state in South East Asia bordered by Bangladesh, India, China, Laos and Thailand. About one third of Myanmars total perimeter of 5,876 km, forms an uninterrupted coastline of 1,930 km along the Bay of Bengal, the countrys 2014 census revealed a much lower population than expected, with 51 million people recorded. Myanmar is 676,578 square kilometres in size and its capital city is Naypyidaw and its largest city and former capital city is Yangon. Early civilizations in Myanmar included the Tibeto-Burman-speaking Pyu city-states in Upper Burma, the Pagan Kingdom fell due to the Mongol invasions and several warring states emerged. In the 16th century, reunified by the Taungoo Dynasty, the country was for a period the largest empire in the history of Mainland Southeast Asia. The early 19th century Konbaung Dynasty ruled over an area included modern Myanmar and briefly controlled Manipur. The British invaded Myanmar after three Anglo-Burmese Wars in the 19th century and the became a British colony. Myanmar became an independent nation in 1948, initially as a nation and then, following a coup détat in 1962. For most of its independent years, the country has been engrossed in rampant ethnic strife, during this time, the United Nations and several other organisations have reported consistent and systematic human rights violations in the country. In 2011, the junta was officially dissolved following a 2010 general election. While former military leaders still wield enormous power in the country, there is, however, continuing criticism of the governments treatment of the Muslim Rohingya minority and its poor response to the religious clashes. In the landmark 2015 election, Aung San Suu Kyis party won a majority in both houses, Myanmar is a country rich in jade and gems, oil, natural gas and other mineral resources. In 2013, its GDP stood at US$56.7 billion, the income gap in Myanmar is among the widest in the world, as a large proportion of the economy is controlled by supporters of the former military government. As of 2016, according to the Human Development Index, Myanmar had a level of human development. The renaming remains a contested issue, many political and ethnic opposition groups and countries continue to use Burma because they do not recognise the legitimacy of the ruling military government or its authority to rename the country. The countrys official name is the Republic of the Union of Myanmar. Countries that do not officially recognise that name use the long form Union of Burma instead, in English, the country is popularly known as either Burma or Myanmar /ˈmjɑːnˌmɑːr/. Both these names are derived from the name of the majority Burmese Bamar ethnic group, Myanmar is considered to be the literary form of the name of the group, while Burma is derived from Bamar, the colloquial form of the groups name

20.
China
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China, officially the Peoples Republic of China, is a unitary sovereign state in East Asia and the worlds most populous country, with a population of over 1.381 billion. The state is governed by the Communist Party of China and its capital is Beijing, the countrys major urban areas include Shanghai, Guangzhou, Beijing, Chongqing, Shenzhen, Tianjin and Hong Kong. China is a power and a major regional power within Asia. Chinas landscape is vast and diverse, ranging from forest steppes, the Himalaya, Karakoram, Pamir and Tian Shan mountain ranges separate China from much of South and Central Asia. The Yangtze and Yellow Rivers, the third and sixth longest in the world, respectively, Chinas coastline along the Pacific Ocean is 14,500 kilometers long and is bounded by the Bohai, Yellow, East China and South China seas. China emerged as one of the worlds earliest civilizations in the basin of the Yellow River in the North China Plain. For millennia, Chinas political system was based on hereditary monarchies known as dynasties, in 1912, the Republic of China replaced the last dynasty and ruled the Chinese mainland until 1949, when it was defeated by the communist Peoples Liberation Army in the Chinese Civil War. The Communist Party established the Peoples Republic of China in Beijing on 1 October 1949, both the ROC and PRC continue to claim to be the legitimate government of all China, though the latter has more recognition in the world and controls more territory. China had the largest economy in the world for much of the last two years, during which it has seen cycles of prosperity and decline. Since the introduction of reforms in 1978, China has become one of the worlds fastest-growing major economies. As of 2016, it is the worlds second-largest economy by nominal GDP, China is also the worlds largest exporter and second-largest importer of goods. China is a nuclear weapons state and has the worlds largest standing army. The PRC is a member of the United Nations, as it replaced the ROC as a permanent member of the U. N. Security Council in 1971. China is also a member of numerous formal and informal multilateral organizations, including the WTO, APEC, BRICS, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the BCIM, the English name China is first attested in Richard Edens 1555 translation of the 1516 journal of the Portuguese explorer Duarte Barbosa. The demonym, that is, the name for the people, Portuguese China is thought to derive from Persian Chīn, and perhaps ultimately from Sanskrit Cīna. Cīna was first used in early Hindu scripture, including the Mahābhārata, there are, however, other suggestions for the derivation of China. The official name of the state is the Peoples Republic of China. The shorter form is China Zhōngguó, from zhōng and guó and it was then applied to the area around Luoyi during the Eastern Zhou and then to Chinas Central Plain before being used as an occasional synonym for the state under the Qing

21.
Bagan
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Bagan is an ancient city located in the Mandalay Region of Myanmar. From the 9th to 13th centuries, the city was the capital of the Kingdom of Pagan, the Bagan Archaeological Zone is a main draw for the countrys nascent tourism industry. It is seen by many as equal in attraction to Angkor Wat in Cambodia, Bagan is the present-day standard Burmese pronunciation of the Burmese word Pugan, derived from Old Burmese Pukam. Its classical Pali name is Arimaddana-pura and its other names in Pali are in reference to its extreme dry zone climate, Tattadesa, and Tampadipa. The Burmese chronicles also report other classical names of Thiri Pyissaya, according to the Burmese chronicles, Bagan was founded in the second century AD, and fortified in 849 AD by King Pyinbya, 34th successor of the founder of early Bagan. Mainstream scholarship however holds that Bagan was founded in the mid-to-late 9th century by the Mranma and it was among several competing Pyu city-states until the late 10th century when the Burman settlement grew in authority and grandeur. From 1044 to 1287, Bagan was the capital as well as the political, economic, over the course of 250 years, Bagans rulers and their wealthy subjects constructed over 10,000 religious monuments in an area of 104 square kilometres in the Bagan plains. The city attracted monks and students from as far as India, Sri Lanka, the culture of Bagan was dominated by religion. The religion of Bagan was fluid, syncretic and by later standards, the Pagan Empire collapsed in 1287 due to repeated Mongol invasions. Recent research shows that Mongol armies may not have reached Bagan itself, and that if they did. However, the damage had already been done, the city, once home to some 50,000 to 200,000 people, had been reduced to a small town, never to regain its preeminence. The city formally ceased to be the capital of Burma in December 1297 when the Myinsaing Kingdom became the new power in Upper Burma, Bagan survived into the 15th century as a human settlement, and as a pilgrimage destination throughout the imperial period. The rest—thousands of less famous, out-of-the-way temples—fell into disrepair, for the few dozen temples that were regularly patronized, the continued patronage meant regular upkeep as well as architectural additions donated by the devotees. Many temples were repainted with new frescoes on top of their original Pagan era ones, the interiors of some temples were also whitewashed, such as the Thatbyinnyu and the Ananda. Many painted inscriptions and even murals were added in this period, Bagan, located in an active earthquake zone, had suffered from many earthquakes over the ages, with over 400 recorded earthquakes between 1904 and 1975. A major earthquake occurred on 8 July 1975, reaching 8 MM in Bagan and Myinkaba, the quake damaged many temples, in many cases, such as the Bupaya, severely and irreparably. Today,2229 temples and pagodas remain, many of these damaged pagodas underwent restorations in the 1990s by the military government, which sought to make Bagan an international tourist destination. However, the restoration efforts instead drew widespread condemnation from art historians, Bagan today is a main tourist destination in the countrys nascent tourism industry, which has long been the target of various boycott campaigns

22.
Orientalism
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In particular, Orientalist painting, representing the Middle East, was a genre of Academic art in the 19th century. Orientalism refers to the Orient, in reference and opposition to the Occident, the East, the word Orient entered the English language as the Middle French orient. In the “Monks Tale”, Geoffrey Chaucer wrote, “That they conquered many regnes grete / In the orient, with many a fair citee. ”The term “orient” refers to countries east of the Mediterranean Sea and Southern Europe. In Place of Fear, Aneurin Bevan used an expanded denotation of the Orient that comprehended East Asia, “the awakening of the Orient under the impact of Western ideas”. Edward Said said that Orientalism “enables the political, economic, cultural and social domination of the West, not just during colonial times, but also in the present. ”In art history, the term Orientalism refers to the works of the Western artists who specialized in Oriental subjects, produced from their travels in Western Asia, during the 19th century. In that time, artists and scholars were described as Orientalists, especially in France, in the 18th and 19th centuries, the term Orientalist identified a scholar who specialized in the languages and literatures of the Eastern world. Among such scholars is the philologist William Jones, whose studies of Indo-European languages established modern philology, additionally, Hebraism and Jewish studies gained popularity among British and German scholars in the 18th and 19th century. The academic field of Oriental studies, which comprehended the cultures of the Near East, the thesis of Orientalism develops Antonio Gramsci’s theory of cultural hegemony, and Michel Foucaults theorisation of discourse to criticise the scholarly tradition of Oriental studies. Said criticised contemporary scholars who perpetuated the tradition of outsider-interpretation of Arabo-Islamic cultures, especially Bernard Lewis, the analyses are of Orientalism in European literature, especially French literature, and do not analyse visual art and Orientalist painting. In that vein, the art historian Linda Nochlin applied Said’s methods of analysis to art. In the academy, the book Orientalism became a text of post-colonial cultural studies. Early architectural use of motifs lifted from the Indian subcontinent is known as Indo-Saracenic Revival architecture, one of the earliest examples is the façade of Guildhall, London. The style gained momentum in the west with the publication of views of India by William Hodges, examples of Hindoo architecture are Sezincote House in Gloucestershire, built for a nabob returned from Bengal, and the Royal Pavilion in Brighton. Venice, the trading partner of the Ottomans, was the earliest centre. Chinoiserie is the term for the fashion for Chinese themes in decoration in Western Europe, beginning in the late 17th century and peaking in waves, especially Rococo Chinoiserie. From the Renaissance to the 18th century, Western designers attempted to imitate the technical sophistication of Chinese ceramics with only partial success, Early hints of Chinoiserie appeared in the 17th century in nations with active East India companies, England, Denmark, the Netherlands and France. Tin-glazed pottery made at Delft and other Dutch towns adopted genuine Ming-era blue, Early ceramic wares made at Meissen and other centers of true porcelain imitated Chinese shapes for dishes, vases and teawares. Pleasure pavilions in Chinese taste appeared in the formal parterres of late Baroque and Rococo German palaces, Thomas Chippendales mahogany tea tables and china cabinets, especially, were embellished with fretwork glazing and railings, ca 1753–70

23.
New Zealand
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New Zealand /njuːˈziːlənd/ is an island nation in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. The country geographically comprises two main landmasses—the North Island, or Te Ika-a-Māui, and the South Island, or Te Waipounamu—and around 600 smaller islands. New Zealand is situated some 1,500 kilometres east of Australia across the Tasman Sea and roughly 1,000 kilometres south of the Pacific island areas of New Caledonia, Fiji, because of its remoteness, it was one of the last lands to be settled by humans. During its long period of isolation, New Zealand developed a distinct biodiversity of animal, fungal, the countrys varied topography and its sharp mountain peaks, such as the Southern Alps, owe much to the tectonic uplift of land and volcanic eruptions. New Zealands capital city is Wellington, while its most populous city is Auckland, sometime between 1250 and 1300 CE, Polynesians settled in the islands that later were named New Zealand and developed a distinctive Māori culture. In 1642, Dutch explorer Abel Tasman became the first European to sight New Zealand, in 1840, representatives of Britain and Māori chiefs signed the Treaty of Waitangi, which declared British sovereignty over the islands. In 1841, New Zealand became a colony within the British Empire, today, the majority of New Zealands population of 4.7 million is of European descent, the indigenous Māori are the largest minority, followed by Asians and Pacific Islanders. Reflecting this, New Zealands culture is derived from Māori and early British settlers. The official languages are English, Māori and New Zealand Sign Language, New Zealand is a developed country and ranks highly in international comparisons of national performance, such as health, education, economic freedom and quality of life. Since the 1980s, New Zealand has transformed from an agrarian, Queen Elizabeth II is the countrys head of state and is represented by a governor-general. In addition, New Zealand is organised into 11 regional councils and 67 territorial authorities for local government purposes, the Realm of New Zealand also includes Tokelau, the Cook Islands and Niue, and the Ross Dependency, which is New Zealands territorial claim in Antarctica. New Zealand is a member of the United Nations, Commonwealth of Nations, ANZUS, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, Pacific Islands Forum, and Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation. Dutch explorer Abel Tasman sighted New Zealand in 1642 and called it Staten Landt, in 1645, Dutch cartographers renamed the land Nova Zeelandia after the Dutch province of Zeeland. British explorer James Cook subsequently anglicised the name to New Zealand, Aotearoa is the current Māori name for New Zealand. It is unknown whether Māori had a name for the country before the arrival of Europeans. Māori had several names for the two main islands, including Te Ika-a-Māui for the North Island and Te Waipounamu or Te Waka o Aoraki for the South Island. Early European maps labelled the islands North, Middle and South, in 1830, maps began to use North and South to distinguish the two largest islands and by 1907, this was the accepted norm. The New Zealand Geographic Board discovered in 2009 that the names of the North Island and South Island had never been formalised and this set the names as North Island or Te Ika-a-Māui, and South Island or Te Waipounamu

24.
Western culture
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The term also applies beyond Europe, to countries and cultures whose histories are strongly connected to Europe by immigration, colonization, or influence. For example, Western Culture includes countries in the Americas and Australasia, whose language, before the Cold War era, the traditional Western viewpoint identified Western Civilization with the Western Christian countries and culture. Ancient Greece is considered the birthplace of Western culture, with the worlds first democratic system of government and major advances in philosophy, science, Greece was followed by Rome, which made key contributions in law, government, engineering and political organization. European culture developed with a range of philosophy, medieval scholasticism, and mysticism. Rational thinking developed through an age of change and formation, with the experiments of the Enlightenment. More often an ideology is what will be used to categorize it as a Western society. There is some disagreement about what nations should or should not be included in the category, many parts of the Eastern Roman Empire are considered Western today but were Eastern in the past. Since the context is highly biased and context-dependent, there is no agreed definition what the West is and it is difficult to determine which individuals fit into which category and the East–West contrast is sometimes criticized as relativistic and arbitrary. Globalism has spread Western ideas so widely that almost all cultures are, to some extent. Stereotyped views of the West have been labeled Occidentalism, paralleling Orientalism—the term for the 19th-century stereotyped views of the East, as Europe discovered the wider world, old concepts adapted. The area that had formerly considered the Orient became the Near East, as the interests of the European powers interfered with Meiji Japan and Qing China for the first time. Thus, the Sino-Japanese War in 1894–1895 occurred in the Far East, the Greeks contrasted themselves to their Eastern neighbors, such as the Trojans in Iliad, setting an example for later contrasts between east and west. In the Middle Ages, the Near East provided a contrast to the West, concepts of what is the West arose out of legacies of the Western Roman Empire and the Eastern Roman Empire. Later, ideas of the west were formed by the concepts of Latin Christendom, Western culture is neither homogeneous nor unchanging. As with all cultures, it has evolved and gradually changed over time. Nevertheless, it is possible to follow the evolution and history of the West, and appreciate its similarities and differences, its borrowings from, and contributions to, other cultures of humanity. Nevertheless, the Greeks felt they were the most civilized and saw themselves as something between the wild barbarians of most of Europe and the soft, slavish Middle-Easterners. In the meantime, however, Greece, under Alexander, had become a capital of the East, the Celts also created some significant literature in the ancient world whenever they were given the opportunity

25.
Muslim
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A Muslim is someone who follows or practices Islam, a monotheistic Abrahamic religion. Muslims consider the Quran, their book, to be the verbatim word of God as revealed to the Islamic prophet. They also follow the teachings and practices of Muhammad as recorded in traditional accounts, Muslim is an Arabic word meaning one who submits. Most Muslims will accept anyone who has publicly pronounced Shahadah as a Muslim, the shahadah states, There is no god but the God and Muhammad is the last messenger of the God. The testimony authorized by God in the Quran that can found in Surah 3,18 states, There is no god except God, which in Arabic, is the exact testimony which God Himself utters, as well as the angels and those who possess knowledge utter. The word muslim is the active participle of the verb of which islām is a verbal noun, based on the triliteral S-L-M to be whole. A female adherent is a muslima, the plural form in Arabic is muslimūn or muslimīn, and its feminine equivalent is muslimāt. The Arabic form muslimun is the stem IV participle of the triliteral S-L-M, the ordinary word in English is Muslim. It is sometimes transliterated as Moslem, which is an older spelling, the word Mosalman is a common equivalent for Muslim used in Central Asia. Until at least the mid-1960s, many English-language writers used the term Mohammedans or Mahometans, although such terms were not necessarily intended to be pejorative, Muslims argue that the terms are offensive because they allegedly imply that Muslims worship Muhammad rather than God. Other obsolete terms include Muslimite and Muslimist, musulmán/Mosalmán is a synonym for Muslim and is modified from Arabic. In English it was sometimes spelled Mussulman and has become archaic in usage, the Muslim philosopher Ibn Arabi said, A Muslim is a person who has dedicated his worship exclusively to God. Islam means making ones religion and faith Gods alone. The Quran states that men were Muslims because they submitted to God, preached His message and upheld His values. Thus, in Surah 3,52 of the Quran, Jesus disciples tell him, We believe in God, and you be our witness that we are Muslims. In Muslim belief, before the Quran, God had given the Tawrat to Moses, the Zabur to David and the Injil to Jesus, who are all considered important Muslim prophets. The most populous Muslim-majority country is Indonesia, home to 12. 7% of the worlds Muslims, followed by Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Egypt. About 20% of the worlds Muslims lives in the Middle East and North Africa, Sizable minorities are found in India, China, Russia, Ethiopia. The country with the highest proportion of self-described Muslims as a proportion of its population is Morocco

26.
Government of Malaysia
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The Government of Malaysia refers to the Federal Government or national government authority based in the federal territories of Kuala Lumpur and the federal executive based in Putrajaya. Malaysia is a federation of 13 states operating within a constitutional monarchy under the Westminster parliamentary system and is categorised as a representative democracy, the federal government of Malaysia adheres to and is created by the Federal Constitution of Malaysia, the supreme law of the land. The federal government adopts the principle of separation of powers under Article 127 of the Federal Constitution, the state governments in Malaysia also have their respective executive and legislative bodies. The judicial system in Malaysia is a court system operating uniformly throughout the country. The federal or central government is the authority in Malaysia having its base in Putrajaya. It is headed by the Prime Minister of Malaysia who is known as the head of government. The bicameral parliament consists of the house, the House of Representatives or Dewan Rakyat and the upper house. All seventy Senate members sit for three-year terms, twenty-six are elected by the thirteen state assemblies, the 222 members of the Dewan Rakyat are elected from single-member districts by universal adult suffrage. The parliament follows a multi-party system and the body is elected through a first-past-the-post system. Parliament has a mandate of five years by law. The king may dissolve parliament at any time and usually does so upon the advice of the Prime Minister, the cabinet is chosen from among members of both houses of Parliament and is responsible to that body. The Executive branch of the government consists of the Prime Minister as the head of the government, followed by the various ministers of the Cabinet. The highest court in the system is the Federal Court, followed by the Court of Appeal. The subordinate courts in each of these jurisdictions include Sessions Courts, Magistrates Courts, Malaysia also has a Special Court to hear cases brought by or against all Royalty. The Prime Minister of Malaysia is the elected head of government of Malaysia. He heads the Cabinet, whose members are appointed by the Yang di-Pertuan Agong advice of the prime minister, the Prime Minister and his Cabinet shall be collectively responsible to Parliament. The Prime Ministers Department is the body and ministry in which the Prime Minister exercises its functions, each state governments in Malaysia is created by the respective state constitutions. Each state has a state legislative chamber whose members are elected from single-member constituencies

27.
Government of Australia
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The Government of the Commonwealth of Australia is the government of the Commonwealth of Australia, a federal parliamentary constitutional monarchy. The Commonwealth of Australia was formed in 1901 as a result of an agreement among six self-governing British colonies, the terms of this contract are embodied in the Australian Constitution, which was drawn up at a Constitutional Convention and ratified by the people of the colonies at referendums. Separation of powers is implied by the structure of the Constitution, the Australian system of government combines elements of the Westminster and Washington systems with unique Australian characteristics, and has been characterised as a Washminster mutation. Section 51 of the Constitution provides for the Commonwealth Governments legislative powers and allocates certain powers, all remaining responsibilities are retained by the six States. Further, each State has its own constitution, so that Australia has seven sovereign Parliaments, the High Court of Australia arbitrates on any disputes which arise between the Commonwealth and the States, or among the States, concerning their respective functions. The Commonwealth Parliament can propose changes to the Constitution, the Commonwealth Constitution also provides that the States can agree to refer any of their powers to the Commonwealth. This may be achieved by way of an amendment to the Constitution via referendum, more commonly powers may be transferred by passing other acts of legislation which authorise the transfer and such acts require the legislative agreement of all the state governments involved. This transfer legislation may have a clause, a legislative provision that nullifies the transfer of power after a specified period. In addition, Australia has several territories, two of which are self-governing, the Australian Capital Territory and the Northern Territory, Australian citizens in these territories are represented by members of both houses of the Commonwealth Parliament. The territory of Norfolk Island was self-governing from 1979 until 2016, the other territories that are regularly inhabited—Jervis Bay, Christmas Island and the Cocos Islands—have never been self-governing. The federal nature of the Commonwealth and the structure of the Parliament of Australia were the subject of protracted negotiations among the colonies during the drafting of the Constitution, the House of Representatives is elected on a basis that reflects the differing populations of the States. Thus New South Wales has 48 members while Tasmania has only five, but the Senate is elected on a basis of equality among the States, all States elect 12 Senators, regardless of population. This was intended to allow the Senators of the smaller States to form a majority, the ACT and the NT each elect two Senators. The third level of government after Commonwealth and State/Territory is Local government, in the form of shires, towns, the Councils of these areas are composed of elected representatives, usually serving part-time. Their powers are devolved to them by the State or Territory in which they are located, with this act, Australian law was made unequivocally sovereign, and the High Court of Australia was confirmed as the highest court of appeal. The theoretical possibility of the British Parliament enacting laws to override the Australian Constitution was also removed, the Legislature makes the laws, and supervises the activities of the other two arms with a view to changing the laws when appropriate. The Australian Parliament is bicameral, consisting of the Queen of Australia, a 76-member Senate, twelve Senators from each state are elected for six-year terms, using proportional representation and the single transferable vote, with half elected every three years. In addition to the state Senators, two senators are elected by voters from the Northern Territory, while another two senators are elected by the voters of the Australian Capital Territory

28.
Commonwealth of Nations
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The Commonwealth of Nations, also known as simply the Commonwealth, is an intergovernmental organisation of 52 member states that are mostly former territories of the British Empire. The Commonwealth dates back to the century with the decolonisation of the British Empire through increased self-governance of its territories. It was formally constituted by the London Declaration in 1949, which established the states as free. The symbol of free association is Queen Elizabeth II who is the Head of the Commonwealth. The Queen is also the monarch of 16 members of the Commonwealth, the other Commonwealth members have different heads of state,31 members are republics and five are monarchies with a different monarch. Member states have no obligation to one another. Instead, they are united by language, history, culture and their values of democracy, free speech, human rights. These values are enshrined in the Commonwealth Charter and promoted by the quadrennial Commonwealth Games, the Commonwealth covers more than 29,958,050 km2, 20% of the worlds land area, and spans all six inhabited continents. She declared, So, it marks the beginning of that free association of independent states which is now known as the Commonwealth of Nations. As long ago as 1884, however, Lord Rosebery, while visiting Australia, had described the changing British Empire—as some of its colonies became more independent—as a Commonwealth of Nations. Conferences of British and colonial prime ministers occurred periodically from the first one in 1887, the Commonwealth developed from the imperial conferences. Newfoundland never did, as on 16 February 1934, with the consent of its parliament, Newfoundland later joined Canada as its 10th province in 1949. Australia and New Zealand ratified the Statute in 1942 and 1947 respectively, after World War II ended, the British Empire was gradually dismantled. Most of its components have become independent countries, whether Commonwealth realms or republics, there remain the 14 British overseas territories still held by the United Kingdom. In April 1949, following the London Declaration, the word British was dropped from the title of the Commonwealth to reflect its changing nature, burma and Aden are the only states that were British colonies at the time of the war not to have joined the Commonwealth upon independence. Hoped for success was reinforced by such achievements as climbing Mount Everest in 1953, breaking the four minute mile in 1954, however, the humiliation of the Suez Crisis of 1956 badly hurt morale of Britain and the Commonwealth as a whole. More broadly, there was the loss of a role of the British Empire. That role was no longer militarily or financially feasible, as Britains withdrawal from Greece in 1947 painfully demonstrated, Britain itself was now just one part of the NATO military alliance in which the Commonwealth had no role apart from Canada

29.
Prime Minister of Malaysia
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It is in practice, the most powerful political position in Malaysia. The Prime Minister has always been from the United Malays National Organisation part of Barisan Nasional since independence, Tunku Abdul Rahman was the Chief Minister of the Federation of Malaya, restyled to Prime Minister of Malaysia on 16 September 1963 after the formation of Malaysia. Federation of Malaya became independent on 31 August 1957, the 6th and current prime minister is Najib Razak, who took office on 3 April 2009. The Yang di-Pertuan Agong on the Prime Ministers advice shall appoint other Ministers from either Dewan Rakyat or Dewan Negara, the Cabinet shall be collectively responsible to Parliament of Malaysia. The members of the Cabinet shall not hold any office of profit and engage in any trade, the Prime Ministers Department is the body and ministry in which the Prime Minister exercises its functions and powers. The Yang di-Pertuan Agongs choice of replacement prime minister will be dictated by the circumstances, the power of the prime minister is subject to a number of limitations. Conventionally, between the dissolution of one Parliament and the convening of the next, the prime minister, from time to time prime ministers are required to leave the country on business and a deputy is appointed to take their place during that time. In the days before jet aeroplanes, such absences could be for extended periods, ismail Abdul Rahman occasionally acted as Acting Prime Minister when Tunku Abdul Rahman and Abdul Razak Hussein was on leave for going abroad. In 1988, when UMNO as the member of the Barisan Nasional coalition was declared unlawful and illegal political party. Ling Liong Sik became the new Chairman of the Barisan Nasional and served as an Acting Prime Minister for a couple of days until the new party, anwar Ibrahim acted as an Acting Prime Minister for two months started from 19 May 1997 as Mahathir Mohamad was on vacation. Colour key, Alliance Party Barisan Nasional Note Prime ministers are granted certain privileges after leaving office at government expense. Former prime ministers continue to be important national figures, the most recently deceased prime minister was Tunku Abdul Rahman, who died on 6 December 1990. Air transports of heads of state and government Official state car Spouse of the Prime Minister of Malaysia Leader of the Opposition Chief Ministers in Malaysia

30.
Mahathir Mohamad
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Mahathir bin Mohamad is a Malaysian politician who was the fourth Prime Minister of Malaysia from 1981 to 2003, making him longest-serving holder of that office. His political career spanned more than 70 years since he first joined a newly-formed UMNO in 1946, born and raised in Alor Setar, Kedah, Mahathir excelled at school and became a medical doctor. He became active in the United Malays National Organisation, Malaysias largest political party and he served one term before losing his seat, subsequently falling out with Prime Minister Tunku Abdul Rahman and being expelled from UMNO. When Abdul Rahman resigned, Mahathir re-entered UMNO and Parliament, and was promoted to the Cabinet, by 1976 he had risen to Deputy Prime Minister, and in 1981 was sworn in as Prime Minister after the resignation of his predecessor, Hussein Onn. During Mahathirs tenure as Prime Minister, Malaysia experienced a period of modernisation and economic growth. Mahathir was a dominant political figure, winning five consecutive general elections, however, his accumulation of power came at the expense of the independence of the judiciary and the traditional powers and privileges of Malaysias royalty. He deployed the controversial Internal Security Act to detain activists, non-mainstream religious figures, as Prime Minister, he was an advocate of third-world development and a prominent international activist. He remains a political figure after his retirement. He became a strident critic of his hand-picked successor Abdullah Badawi in 2006 and later and his son Mukhriz Mahathir was the Chief Minister of Kedah until early 2016. On 29 February 2016, Mahathir Mohamad quit UMNO in light of UMNOs support for the actions of Prime Minister Najib Razak, among the other reasons are the RM2. 6bil and 1Malaysia Development Berhad issues. On 9 September 2016, the Registrar of Societies gave his stamp of approval for Mahathir Mohamad’s new Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia. Mahathir is currently the chairman of the party, Mahathir was born at his parents home in a poor neighbourhood of Alor Setar, the capital of the state of Kedah, British Malaya, on 10 July 1925. Mahathirs birth certificate gives his date of birth as 20 December and he was actually born on 10 July, his biographer Barry Wain explains that 20 December was an arbitrary date. An aspect of Mahathirs birth set him apart, he was not born into the aristocracy or a prominent religious or political family, both parents had been married previously, Mahathir had six half-siblings and two full-siblings. Discipline imposed by his father motivated him to study, and he showed little interest in sports and he won a position in a selective English medium secondary school, having become fluent in English well ahead of his primary school peers. With schools closed during the Japanese occupation of Malaya during World War II, he went into business, first selling coffee and later pisang goreng and other snacks. After the war, he graduated from school with high marks. There he met his wife, Siti Hasmah Mohamad Ali

31.
Islam
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Islam is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion which professes that there is only one and incomparable God and that Muhammad is the last messenger of God. It is the worlds second-largest religion and the major religion in the world, with over 1.7 billion followers or 23% of the global population. Islam teaches that God is merciful, all-powerful, and unique, and He has guided mankind through revealed scriptures, natural signs, and a line of prophets sealed by Muhammad. The primary scriptures of Islam are the Quran, viewed by Muslims as the word of God. Muslims believe that Islam is the original, complete and universal version of a faith that was revealed many times before through prophets including Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses. As for the Quran, Muslims consider it to be the unaltered, certain religious rites and customs are observed by the Muslims in their family and social life, while social responsibilities to parents, relatives, and neighbors have also been defined. Besides, the Quran and the sunnah of Muhammad prescribe a comprehensive body of moral guidelines for Muslims to be followed in their personal, social, political, Islam began in the early 7th century. Originating in Mecca, it spread in the Arabian Peninsula. The expansion of the Muslim world involved various caliphates and empires, traders, most Muslims are of one of two denominations, Sunni or Shia. Islam is the dominant religion in the Middle East, North Africa, sizable Muslim communities are also found in Horn of Africa, Europe, China, Russia, Mainland Southeast Asia, Philippines, Northern Borneo, Caucasus and the Americas. Converts and immigrant communities are found in almost every part of the world, Islam is a verbal noun originating from the triliteral root s-l-m which forms a large class of words mostly relating to concepts of wholeness, submission, safeness and peace. In a religious context it means voluntary submission to God, Islām is the verbal noun of Form IV of the root, and means submission or surrender. Muslim, the word for an adherent of Islam, is the active participle of the verb form. The word sometimes has connotations in its various occurrences in the Quran. In some verses, there is stress on the quality of Islam as a state, Whomsoever God desires to guide. Other verses connect Islām and dīn, Today, I have perfected your religion for you, I have completed My blessing upon you, still others describe Islam as an action of returning to God—more than just a verbal affirmation of faith. In the Hadith of Gabriel, islām is presented as one part of a triad that also includes imān, Islam was historically called Muhammadanism in Anglophone societies. This term has fallen out of use and is said to be offensive because it suggests that a human being rather than God is central to Muslims religion

32.
The Wall Street Journal Asia
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The Wall Street Journal Asia, a version of The Wall Street Journal, provides news and analysis of global business developments for an Asian audience. Formerly known as The Asian Wall Street Journal, it was founded in 1976 and is printed in nine Asian cities, Bangkok, Hong Kong, Jakarta, Kuala Lumpur, Manila, Seoul, Singapore, Taipei, average circulation for 2011 was 83,421. Its largest markets in order of importance are, Hong Kong, Singapore, the papers main regional office is in Hong Kong, and its former Editor, International, was Daniel Hertzberg. The first editor and publisher of the Asian Journal was Peter R. Kann, the Wall Street Journal Asia can also be found at The Wall Street Journal Online at WSJ. com, the largest paid subscription news site on the Web. The Wall Street Journal Asia is also published online in Chinese at Chinese. wsj. com and its readers are 77. 9% Asian citizens, and 67. 4% work in top management. Its readership has an annual income of US$229,000. The Wall Street Journal Europe Category, Lists of newspapers by country The Wall Street Journal Asia Todays The Wall Street Journal Asia front page at the Newseum website Chinese. wsj. com

33.
Kuala Lumpur
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Kuala Lumpur, officially the Federal Territory of Kuala Lumpur, or more commonly called KL is the national capital of Malaysia as well as its largest city. Being rated as an Alpha world city, Kuala Lumpur is the global city in Malaysia which covers an area of 243 km2 and has an estimated population of 1.73 million as of 2016. Greater Kuala Lumpur, also known as the Klang Valley, is an agglomeration of 7.25 million people as of 2017. It is among the fastest growing regions in South-East Asia, in terms of population. Kuala Lumpur is the seat of the Parliament of Malaysia, the city was once home to the executive and judicial branches of the federal government, but they were moved to Putrajaya in early 1999. Some sections of the judiciary still remain in the city of Kuala Lumpur. The official residence of the Malaysian King, the Istana Negara, is situated in Kuala Lumpur. Kuala Lumpur is the cultural, financial and economic centre of Malaysia due to its position as the capital as well as being a key city. Kuala Lumpur is one of three Federal Territories of Malaysia, enclaved within the state of Selangor, on the central west coast of Peninsular Malaysia. Since the 1990s, the city has played host to international sporting, political and cultural events including the 1998 Commonwealth Games. Kuala Lumpur has undergone rapid development in recent decades and it is home to the tallest twin buildings in the world, the Petronas Twin Towers, which have become an iconic symbol of Malaysias futuristic development. Kuala Lumpur means muddy confluence, kuala is the point where two rivers join together or an estuary, and lumpur means mud. One suggestion is that it was named after Sungai Lumpur, it was recorded in 1824 that Sungei Lumpoor was the most important tin-producing settlement up the Klang River. It has also proposed that Kuala Lumpur was originally named Pengkalan Lumpur in the same way that Klang was once called Pengkalan Batu. Another suggestion is that it was initially a Cantonese word lam-pa meaning flooded jungle or decayed jungle, there is however no firm contemporary evidence for these suggestions other than anecdotes. It is also possible that the name is a form of an earlier. It is unknown who founded or named the settlement called Kuala Lumpur, Kuala Lumpur was originally a small hamlet of just a few houses and shops at the confluence of Sungai Gombak and Sungai Klang before it grew into a town. The miners landed at Kuala Lumpur and continued their journey on foot to Ampang where the first mine was opened

34.
Prime Minister of Australia
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The Prime Minister of the Commonwealth of Australia is the head of government of Australia. The individual who holds the office is the most senior Minister of the Crown, the leader of the Cabinet, the office is not mentioned in the Constitution of Australia and exists only through longstanding political convention and tradition. Despite this, in practice it is the most powerful position in Australia. The individual who holds the office is commissioned by the Governor-General of Australia, almost always and according to convention, the Prime Minister is the leader of the majority party or largest party in a coalition of parties in the House of Representatives. However, there is no requirement that the prime minister sit in the House of Representatives. The only case where a member of the Senate was appointed minister was John Gorton. Malcolm Turnbull has held the office of Prime Minister since 15 September 2015, the Prime Minister and Treasurer are traditionally members of the House, but the Constitution does not have such a requirement. Before being sworn in as a Minister of the Crown, a person must first be sworn in as a member of the Federal Executive Council if they are not already a member. Membership of the Federal Executive Council entitles the member to the style of The Honourable for life, the senior members of the Executive Council constitute the Cabinet of Australia. The Prime Minister is, like ministers, normally sworn in by the Governor-General. When defeated in an election, or on resigning, the Prime Minister is said to hand in the commission, in the event of a Prime Minister dying in office, or becoming incapacitated, the Governor-General can terminate the commission. Despite the importance of the office of minister, the Constitution does not mention the office by name. The conventions of the Westminster system were thought to be entrenched in Australia by the authors of the Constitution that it was deemed unnecessary to detail them. The formal title of the portfolio has always been simply Prime Minister, except for the period of the Fourth Deakin Ministry, Page was the leader of the smaller party in the governing coalition, the Country Party. He held the office for three weeks until the UAP elected a new leader, Robert Menzies, in August 1941 Menzies resigned as prime minister. In July 1945 John Curtin died suddenly and his deputy, Frank Forde, was sworn in the next day as prime minister, although the Labor Party had not had an opportunity to meet and elect a new leader. Forde served for eight days until Ben Chifley was elected leader, Chifley was then sworn in, replacing Forde, who became Australias shortest-serving prime minister. Harold Holt disappeared while swimming on 17 December 1967 and was declared presumed dead on 19 December, the governor-general, Lord Casey, commissioned the Leader of the Country Party, John McEwen, to form a government until the Liberal Party elected a new leader

35.
Bob Hawke
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Robert James Lee Bob Hawke AC, GCL is an Australian politician who was the Prime Minister of Australia and the Leader of the Labor Party from 1983 to 1991. After graduating from the University of Oxford in 1956, Hawke was allowed to join the Australian Council of Trade Unions as a research officer. Having risen to responsible for wage arbitration, he was elected President of the ACTU in 1969. After a decade as ACTU President, Hawke announced his intention to enter politics, three years later, he led Labor to a landslide election victory at the 1983 election and was sworn in as Prime Minister. He led Labor to victory at three more elections in 1984,1987 and 1990, thus making him the most electorally successful Labor Party Leader in history, to date, he is the only Australian Prime Minister to be born in South Australia. Hawke was born in Bordertown, South Australia, the child of Arthur Hawke, a Congregationalist minister, and his wife Edith. His uncle, Albert, was the Labor Premier of Western Australia between 1953-59, and was also a friend of Prime Minister John Curtin, who was in many ways Bob Hawkes role model. Hawkes elder brother Neil, who was nine years his senior, died at the age of seventeen after contracting meningitis, ellie Hawke subsequently developed an almost messianic belief in her sons destiny, and this contributed to Hawkes supreme self-confidence throughout his career. At the age fifteen, he boasted to friends that he would one day become the Prime Minister of Australia. At the age of seventeen, the age that his brother Neil had died. This near-death experience acted as his catharsis, driving him to make the most of his talents and he joined the Labor Party in 1947 at the aged eighteen, and successfully applied for a Rhodes Scholarship at the end of 1952. Hawke was educated at Perth Modern School and the University of Western Australia, graduating in 1952 with a Bachelor of Arts and he was also president of the universitys guild during the same year. The following year, Hawke won a Rhodes Scholarship to attend University College, Oxford, in his memoirs, Hawke suggested that this single feat may have contributed to his political success more than any other, by endearing him to an electorate with a strong beer culture. In 1956, Hawke accepted a scholarship to undertake studies in the area of arbitration law in the law department at the Australian National University in Canberra. Soon after his arrival at ANU, Hawke became the representative on the University Council. A year later, Hawke was recommended to the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions to become a research officer, the recommendation was made by Hawkes mentor at ANU, H. P. Brown, who for a number of years had assisted the ACTU in national wage cases, Hawke decided to abandon his doctoral studies and accept the offer, moving to Melbourne with his wife Hazel. He was first appointed as an ACTU advocate in 1959, the 1958 case, under previous advocate R. L. Eggleston, had yielded only a five-shilling increase

36.
Barbarian
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A barbarian is a human who is perceived to be either uncivilized or primitive. Alternatively, they may instead be admired and romanticised as noble savages, in idiomatic or figurative usage, a barbarian may also be an individual reference to a brutal, cruel, warlike, insensitive person. The term originates from the Greek, βάρβαρος, in ancient times, the Greeks used it mostly for people of different cultures, but there are examples where one Greek city or state would use the word to attack another. In the early period and sometimes later, Greeks used it for the Turks. Comparable notions are found in non-European civilizations, notably China and Japan, during the Roman Empire, the Romans used the word barbarian for many people, such as the Germanics, Celts, Gauls, Iberians, Thracians, Parthians and Sarmatians. The Ancient Greek name βάρβαρος, barbarian, was an antonym for πολίτης, the earliest attested form of the word is the Mycenaean Greek

37.
TV3 (Malaysia)
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TV3 is a Malaysian private, free-to-air television channel owned and operated by the Media Prima Berhad, a Malaysian conglomerate. It began broadcasting on 1 June 1984, now it broadcasts 24 hours a day. Similar to most television stations in Southeast Asia, TV3 is known for its Soap operas, TV3 began broadcasting on 1 June 1984 at 18,00 local time, launched by the then Prime Minister Tun Dr. Mahathir bin Mohamad. On 28 July 1984, TV3 became the first commercial channel in collaboration with RTM bringing Malaysians the live coverage of the Los Angeles Olympics, the same was also done in 1988 and 1992. m. Thursdays at 1,10 p. m. Fridays at 12,00 p. m. transmissions ended at around 12,30 a. m. after the news, except for Saturdays. 24-hour broadcasting on TV3 returned in 2003 in the Ramadhan month, the current 24-hour broadcasting on TV3 began in January 2010, although TV3 may remain sign-off for the analogue versions of the channel/due to maintenance. Between November 2010 and January 2011, TV3 broadcasts from 6, 30am to 12 and it also broadcasts between 6. 30am to 2. 30am between early 2015 until early 2016. The prime-time soap operas were initially broadcast for 30 minutes a day in 2010, then expanded to 90 minutes in 2011, then 120 minutes in 2012, generally, Nightline follows the soap opera. The main news program is Buletin Utama, broadcast at 20, 00-21,00, during floods and certain major events, news programs are expanded, and added midday news. In terms of advertising revenue, the company retains its leadership position, TV3 continues to upgrade its equipment for production and transmission, and its employees receive continuous exposure and training in television production. This has enabled TV3 to remain as the private commercial broadcaster. TV3 together with TV9 and local English language daily the New Straits Times and Malay language daily Berita Harian form the largest media group in Malaysia and it is currently headed by Ahmad Izham Omar. With a strong base of television producers have revolutionised local content production to admiral levels in the broadcast industry, the station has been a trendsetter by producing quality local production and has caught the attention and loyalty of Malaysians. Believing in the precept that local content is the way to go, TV3 continues to invest in people, however, the station also broadcasts a balance of quality foreign content movies, dramas, situation comedy, documentaries and sports. TV3 currently broadcasts on VHF Channel 12 and UHF Channel 29 and it is widely seen as favouring the government and not giving enough coverage for the opposition. TV3 is testing digital terrestrial television, using the Chinese DMB-T/H system and its coverage is limited to Kuala Lumpur City area only. TV3 was awarded the 2007 Asia Pacific Entrepreneurship Award for Responsible Entrepreneurship organised by Enterprise Asia for its significant contributions towards corporate social responsibility, consequently, it prevented people in government-built housing blocks from installing the special antennas required to receive the channel. In addition, it prevented local newspapers and magazines from carrying listings for TV3, TV3 was available on Singapore CableVision, Singapores only cable TV operator, until it was removed at 9pm,22 July 2002 owing to copyright issues

38.
Racism in Australia
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Racism in Australia traces both historical and contemporary racist community attitudes and incidents in Australia. Contemporary Australia is the product of multiple waves of immigration, predominantly from Great Britain, laws forbid racial and other forms of discrimination and protect freedom of religion. In 2009, about 25.6 per cent of the resident population of Australia comprised those born overseas. Discriminatory laws against indigenous people and multiethnic immigration were dismantled in the decades of the Post War period. A1967 Referendum regarding Aboriginal rights was carried with over 90% approval by the electorate, Aboriginal health indicators remain lower than other ethnic groups within Australia and again are the subject of political debate. Policies of multiculturalism were pursued in the period and first Eastern and Southern European. Indigenous peoples of Australia, comprising Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders peoples, have lived in Australia for at least 40,000 years before the arrival of British settlers in 1788, in the past, indigenous Australians were subject to racist government policy and community attitudes. The indigenous population in 1901 was estimated at 93,333, in 1991 as 282,979, in 1996 as 386,049, the 2011 Australian Census counted the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander population at 517,200 or 2. 5% of the total Australian population. In 2009, around 20% of the Australian land-mass was owned by Aboriginal people, the Nationality and Citizenship Act 1948, which came into force on 26 January 1949, created an Australian citizenship, but which co-existed with the continuing status of British subject. Aborigines became Australian citizens under the 1948 Act in the way as other Australians. The same applied to Torres Strait Islanders and the population of the Territory of Papua. In 1770 and again in 1788, Britain claimed Eastern Australia as its own on the basis of the now discredited doctrine of terra nullius. The implication of the doctrine became evident when John Batman purported to make Batmans Treaty in 1835 with the Wurundjeri elders of the area around the future Melbourne. Though the so-called Treaty was objectionable on many grounds, it was the first, the British navigator James Cook claimed the east coast of Australia for Britain in 1770, without conducting negotiations with the existing inhabitants. Bennelong and a became the first Australians to sail to Europe. Bungaree accompanied the explorer Matthew Flinders on the first circumnavigation of Australia, pemulwuy was accused of the first killing of a white settler in 1790, and Windradyne resisted early British expansion beyond the Blue Mountains. According to the historian Geoffrey Blainey, in Australia during the colonial period, even worse, smallpox, measles, influenza and other new diseases swept from one Aboriginal camp to another. The main conqueror of Aborigines was to be disease and its ally, christian churches sought to convert Aborigines, and were often used by government to carry out welfare and assimilation policies

39.
Radio Televisyen Malaysia
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Radio Televisyen Malaysia is a Malaysian public broadcaster. It has 36 radio and three stations in Malaysia, based in Kuala Lumpur. RTM is the first broadcaster in Malaysia, RTM celebrates its 70th anniversary on 1 April 2016. RTM started broadcasting radio on 1 April 1946, and television on 28 December 1963, the first two radio stations are Radio Malaya and The Blue Network. The transmitters were located first in Singapore and later in Kuala Lumpur and it would be later renamed Radio Malaysia on 16 September 1963 with the transmissions beginning with its trademark words Inilah Radio Malaysia on the day the Malaysia of today was born. The then 10-month-old Television Singapura became part of Malaysia Televisyen as its station for Singapore viewers, a role served until 1965. Radio and TV operations merged in 1968 as the new Angkasapuri headquarters was inaugurated, thus Radio Malaysia and Televisyen Malaysias identities merged to become Radio Televisyen Malaysia in 1969. RTM began broadcasting in colour since 1978 in Peninsular Malaysia and 1980 in Sabah, between 1972 and 1999, RTM shared time with TV Pendidikan, the national education channel, in the daytime. TV1 introduced daytime transmissions in 1994 thus resulting to TV Pendidikan ceased broadcasting on TV1, TV1 broadcast overnight many times since the early 1990s, but daily 24-hour transmissions did not come until 2003, which was later cancelled. Permanent 24-hour broadcasting was introduced in 2006 on TV2, and 2012 on TV1

A fictional country is a country that is made up for fictional stories, and does not exist in real life, or one that …

A map of the four nations in Avatar: The Last Airbender. The characters at the top, 群雄四分, mean "Powers are divided into Four". The characters of the four lands are 水善 (Water is Benevolent), 土強 (Earth is Strong), 火烈 (Fire is Fierce), and 气和 (Air is Peaceful). The phrase at the bottom, 天下一匡, reads "The world (all under heaven) is guided by one".